Blog

When Nik Illingworth came to an Open Day last year, he was brimming with CG enthusiasm. He knew that he wanted a career in VFX but didn't really know how he was going to make it happen. After studying for 12 weeks with us, Nik was up and running. He finished his course, was offered his first job at Frametore and accepted it, then a short while later he decided to come back to us for 6 weeks of final professional training. He's now Effects Technical Director at MPC and still has the same love for the industry that he started off with. Nik's is one of many stories of CG enthusiasts who come to study with us and that's why we wanted to share his case study with you - getting a career in VFX off the ground really is easier than you think.

Here's my final post showing some work from the courses which have just finished. These clips are from escapees who were on the Visual Effects Production course taught by Dan Shutt. Again these are 'work in progress' and need a little more polishing but you can see they are both great ideas that have been really well executed.

Autodesk have started something new for those on support: it's called Subscription Advantage Packs. This is a way for those that pay the price of subscription to get new features dropped in, fast... One of the most awaited 'drops' is Mudbox on Linux!

Last week, I promised to share with you some more of the work that our students have presented to us at the end of their courses. This time, I have decided to show you the work of Tracey Chung, who recently completed our Character Animation course taught by Alex Williams.

All of us on the RenderMan team were delighted to hear that so many of you found Lee Danskin's RenderMan tips and Trick's webinar so useful. There were a lot of questions at the end, some of which Lee did not get a chance to answer so we have put them in a Q&A which you can check out by logging into Escape's Free Resource Centre. We've also recorded the webinar, so if you missed it or want to see it again, log in and watch it.

If you work in TV or produce work for TV as a freelancer, you could receive between 50% (employees) to 80% (freelancers) off the price of four of our visual effects courses. These are online courses, so can be done in your own time. They are: Maya Core; Nuke for 3d Artists; Zbrush Foundation; and Advanced Lighting and Shading.

A common misconception amongst Junior Artists when preparing their first reel is that they have to come up with some overly elaborate and complex VFX shot to wow future employees. These usually feature exotic spaceships, massive explosions and weapons of mass destruction. It doesn't have to be like that. So, what makes a good CG shot? I had a chat with our Training Development Director and Maya Guru Lee Danskin to find out.

"Dad, can we go to the cinema?" Yes it was that time of the summer holidays when the children will do anything to get out of the house. I exclaimed "But we have already seen everything that's any good!"

If you are a user of any software package you'll know that at least once a year software developers deliver an update. Autodesk's Maya 2011 was no exception. 3D users had become accustomed to Maya's UI over the last 10 years but Autodesk thought it was time for a change, enter Maya 2011. So this release brings all sorts of challenges for the diehard Maya user, it has a new interface... I hear the screams of "where did you put that" and "what on earth does this icon represent"!

Firstly a big thank you to all of you who entered our CG Graduate Design Awards. We were really impressed with the standard of entries and it made last week’s judging day with our friends at The Mill pretty tough.

Following on from our looks or personality blog I wanted to share this game in case you haven't seen it all ready. For me, this game has the perfect blend: an incredible art style, ingenious game play and haunting sound.